Friday, 30 May 2008

I'm fed up with backstitch. I wanted to try something else for the sleeves and I'm not sure whether I've chosen well. I attached the edges with small crosses. When sewing I helped myself like this (as freehand broidery's not my cup of tea:) ) - I have quite good estimation as far as very small distances. I've sewn so that there would be a margin of the size of one cross around each one. It worked well.You know, the Middle Ages were all about Christianity, so there are never too many crosses:-PI also inserted two side gores. It's quite easy as there are seams you can start from. However I'm still afraid about the front and back gore. Do you know and reasonable and nice way of inserting? I'm still searching for one. I have a few ideas but they seem poor shift to me.. No matter, I'll solve this somehow:-)My friend's bigger than I am, it fits her much better than me:-)Eventually she didn't want to tie her sleeves. Once I'll make my own tunic petticoat (hahaha) and I'm laying this feature aside for then.

Thursday, 22 May 2008

I finished the draft of the dress today.I arranged the rectangle on myself so that the neckline was in the position I liked. Then I pinned one side. This way I found the center of the dress.I found the center of one side of each sleeve and placed it to the center marks of the dress. I sewed them on (always the right side to the right side).Here you can see the state the dress is in at the moment. The sleeves are a bit flared. They'll probably have a cord to tie them when it's cold.Now I have to pay a visit to my victim to see if the thing suits and to mark the length of the sleeves and the place to insert the gores. The front and the back gore - I always have trouble with these. I know how to attach a gore to a seam, but at a blank piece of fabric I'm helpless all the time.. :-(Maybe I should make one petty like this for poor me as well:-D

Tuesday, 20 May 2008

I haven't been making a petty for a long time, have I? :-PThis will be my friend's dress. The petticoat's pattern is the usual one.A looong rectangle (twice her height to the shoulder by half her chest girth) and two pieces for sleeves - armhole by the distance between the shoulder and the wrist.Today I only had time to make a neckline. Since my experience with velvet I've become a bit paranoiac. I didn't cut a supportive piece of fabric fitting the hole I'd have cut, but I pinned a vague rectangle instead.I sewed along the drawn line. The supportive piece's now on the right side. I trimmed it a few cm from the oval. I tried to use my favourite machine stitch to overedge. If my camera were better, you might see that I had to give up and finish it by zig-zagging.Hand sewing with love:-) I liked the "rice" stitch I used the last time and I decided to repeat it. The inner edge has to be cut only a few mm from the sewn line - I trimmed it just before turning the oval to the wrong side and fastening there so that it didn't have time to fray out. Paranioac, you know:-D

Monday, 19 May 2008

Another of my projects. I learned to do tapestry crochet and I like it:)I eventually found out how to make circle. I saw it at Art of Crochet - very nice and flat one. The thing is just that when you increase (by making two stitches in one "heart") you have to watch the previous round - you shouldn't increase above the place where you'd increased before. I start to increase when the centre axis of the stitch doesn't steer for the center of the circle.I just haven't mastered finishing the rounds - I can't make the endings look all the same and be aligned in a straight line.This is a bottom of a future pencil stand.Tapestry crochet uses usually two threads, when only one at a time is visible. The other one is hidden inside the stitches. By changing these two you can get two-coloured crochet.You can see that my yarn is put on the hearts (the upper part of the stitches). When you insert the hookunder a heart and bring the yarn over it, it's still placed above.Hold the thread in its position and work with the upper one as usual. Like this you get a nice red round.When I want to change the colours I do it at the second step. I just loop the yarn of the other colour over the hook and finish the stitch like that.You can see that now I have a single crochet with an orange tip. This loop will be part of the next stitch. From now on you can continue with orange.Using this technic you can crochet any picture in two colours you want. I've chosen a picture of a prehistorical hunter and his prey.If you find a picture on the internet or draw your own, you may easily turn it into a pattern. Open it in Painting, zoom it as much as possible and press Ctrl+G (Show grid). If the picture's too big you can make it smaller by Ctrl+W (I don't know the exact names of the functions as I have the Czech version:) ).Enjoy!

Thursday, 15 May 2008

I finally made the draft. The threads are laid too densely. I see that there's a lot to learn about this kind of embroidery to master it:)This part's what I call combing:-) At the beginning you have a chaotic mass of threads, at the end they are laid nice in rows. The technique is well explained by Racaire (refilsaum). I made the tiny stitches after every second thread. In my opinion it would have been better to change direction of the threads at legs. Next time..Combing is fun. You just have to get through all other work to get to it :-/

Wednesday, 14 May 2008

There always has to be a pocket for my sock poi. This time I think the poi are nicer than the pouch..I used my usual method - two pieces, one with machine embroidery, side bands that are cut after sewing. I just didn't sew one upper end. This way I didn't have to cut the fabric or stitches to thread a cord.Maybe that's just that I should have used a black thread. All the poi contained black colour so this has never come to my mind. And the design of embroidery's poor.Nevertheless, it's good in at least one aspect. The pocket's big nad comfortable (I always make them too small :-D ).

Tuesday, 13 May 2008

It's my friend's birthday soon. These are the first sock poi I won't get paid for. She asked me for plain cyan poi but didn't have money.I didn't fancy making plain simple poi:-) I made the poi a bit shorter and cut a jagged piece that I joined with the rest by machine satin stitch (zigg-zagg stitch with very small length, usually 1 to F).I added leather strips I'd been admiring in shop for their bright colour. I cut them in half and tied with a simple knot in the middle. Then I folded it in half and inserted into the hole, the knot went first. This is optional as it can be easily removed and put back.The colour's really lovely.

Sunday, 11 May 2008

I wanted a belt for my costume for the performance.I cut twelve pieces of natural cord, about three meters each. Here you can see the repeating pattern.The belt's base is a square knot. It's a simple knot with a cord inside. I worked with six double cords (here they're single), so there are four of them inside. Two of these knots, each in other direction, form a square knot.After ten square knots, there's always an ornament. The first type: I made a square knot from the middle four cords (two inside the knot). Then I separated the threads in two halves and made a knot on each one.Then one knot in the middle, two on the sides and one on the middle and that's it.The other decoration consists of knot's I'm not sure about the name of. It's a simple knot again, there are two cords inserted this time. You put a cord over the two, then you weave the other thread - under the right one at the bottom and under the left one at the top. These knots can form a nice leaf when you work with the two supportive cords - at the first half you keep them one far from the other, at the other you join them. I laid two square knots to each half of the threads in the center of the leaf, so I got something like an eye:-)This is what I got. I was afraid it would look worse :-)

Saturday, 10 May 2008

I'm finishing today. Tomorrow's the Mothers' Day and I have to have it done.I separated the free wires into five groups.I twistes all the groups. By the way this was annoying. I'd intended to add a few wires after this act to increase the width but I gave up.I tried to attach the tree to a piece of a rock. I found out I had few hands:-) Plaster helped a lot and when I was workig under the stone I didn't have to be afraid that I could change the tree's position.I tied the ropes together. The knot was done similarly to a woven spider's wheel stitch. I hammered the wires flat. I was surprised that they didn't scratch the table at all when I finished.So this is my hybrid beaded bonsai. Sister made one as well and we hid it for Mum as siter won't be at home and I'll be in Austria tomorrow:-)

Friday, 9 May 2008

I made two more branches today and I decided this was enough. Now I have to join them all together.I cut a wire twice as long as my arm is, folded in the middle and hooked it to the lowest leaf of the smallest branch like this.Then I twisted the wire around the rest of the branch until the end where I let it hang.I added branches this way - I put the branch to the trunk and bent it.I found out I had to twist it with a few (inner) wires from the trunk so that it was stable and didn't move.I took the outer wires (at first they were two and as I was increasing they were finally six), tried to keep them in a flat line and twisted the tree.Eventually I got this strange something between bush and tree with a big buch of wires sticking out.The next step will be fastening to a piece of rock.

Thursday, 8 May 2008

Eventually something historical :-) My blog is too full of modern crafting..I needed a present for a friend of mine. I found the inspiration at marvellous site Kat's Hats.First I prepared a rectangle of the legth of 60*15cm and embellished it with beautiful golden lace. I bought a man-made gem that should be in the center. I'd wanted a gem in metal hem, but i didn't find any. I hesitated whether to enclose the gem with lace or embroidery, the second won and I was learning from the web how to do it on a piece of fabric.Now to the rest. I prepared two rectangles (right sides together) of the length twice bigger than the small rectangle's one. I drew the pattern I thought up and pinned securely.I didn't sew from one end to the other, I left a hole to be able to sew each piece to the circle later. You can notice that I'm still not good at sewing curved lines. What's more the velvet was moving while being sewn. I probably completed the two pieces wrong, or maybe velvet is just tricky:-PThen I sewed each colour's edges together, pinned it like this and finished the curves.Pah on the detail is visible how terrible my lines are :-D I cut the fabric near the stitches, at the "valleys" I tried to leave little fabric or cut the edge several times sheer to the stitches. At the "hills" I'd wanted to cut V-hapes, but I didn't have time so they look more like U-shapes.Turned over and the wreath part sewn to a circle.I started to gather the fabric to sew the big something into the small something. I used my favourite method of halving. I pinned the fabric of both at one place, then I foung out where the half of both the small and the big piece is situated. I pinned these two places together. I continued halving until they were all nicely pinned.And then I found out I had completely forgot about the tail thing I wanted. It's the part that hang from one side of the wreath and whose end is placed on the opposite shoulder. I made it smaller so that it just hanged.. The same technique as at the Big piece. My skillfullness almost the same :-PPinned together even with the sewn and turned over tail. I sewed about a cm from the edge of the wreath.Now to the gem. I learned how to do sisha embroidery, called mirror-work as well, from one person on the Net that was so kind as to share her knowledge with us.I had to rip out the draft of emboidery I had made, because I didn't have any more golden thread :-[ I hoped that the result would look like a metal decoration that I didn't have.I made one # sign and the other 45° slewed.If you start, imagine the thread just goes out from fabric.The next step is a something like a buttonhole stitch. You go under the web with your needle.At this part I adaptated the stitch a bit. I'd call it a buttonhole-chain sisha as the next step resembles the chain stitch. Go back to the place your thread goes from and into the fabric.Then prick a little to the left, needle inside the loop.I prefered to fasten the chain loop before proceeding further, I don't like loose embroidery and fastened all together the broidery would look more like a metal chaos than the mirror work:-DLike this your stitch should look.The least one is done intuitively. Instead of making a loop going under the very first stitch and back to the place the thread goes from to close the last chain. I love doing sisha embroidery :)Back to the rest. I roled the wreath rectangle so that the edge was hidden iside. I pinned it and sewn from the deep blue side, just at the limit between the wreath and the rest, stitches are visible only inside the wreath.I modified the result to look better - hidden backstitch was used to move the wreath up.Ironing.. (Time-taking but heart-warming after all of the work done, as it gives the chaperon a lot nicer look.)This is my kind model showing the chaperon.The producing took several hours more than one day.I'll give it to my friend on Saturday. Will he like it? :-)